Manchester-by-the-Sea
26/01/17 Filed in: Cinema
This week at the cinema we saw Manchester-by-the-Sea. It has been well received and that's not surprising considering the strength of both the story and the acting. Casey Affleck gives what will probably be the performance of a lifetime as the brooding Lee Chandler.
Lee is working as a janitor in Quincy, Boston. He is good at his job but extremely temperamental. His mood swings between being most helpful to downright antagonistic, depending on how he is treated. He receives a call saying that his brother, Joe, has been taken seriously ill. There are a number of flashbacks in this film, one relating to Joe being diagnosed with a life shortening heart disease. By the time that Lee has driven to the hospital, near Manchester-by-the-Sea, Joe has died. The film actually starts with Joe and Lee on a boat with Joe's son Patrick, and on Joe's death his will requests that Lee becomes Patrick's guardian and trustee. This doesn't seem an unreasonable request but for Lee it is a bodyblow. It is a while before we learn why Lee feels that he cannot take on this responsibility, which takes us in another flashback to an incident that changed him as a person, and caused him to move away from the area.
The film then explores the relationship between Lee and Patrick, and the anguish that Lee suffers as he tries to manage affairs after his brother's death and come to terms with his responsibilities to Patrick. Things are not made any easier by Patrick's strong will and desire to stay where he is, while Lee wants them to move back to Boston. Further complications arise in respect of Lee's former wife, who he meets at the funeral reception, and Joe's former wife, they having become estranged after Joe's diagnosis. Patrick's sex life adds further complications as he is playing the field with two girlfriends, the mother of one showing an interest in Lee, an interest that isn't in any way reciprocated.
Lee is working as a janitor in Quincy, Boston. He is good at his job but extremely temperamental. His mood swings between being most helpful to downright antagonistic, depending on how he is treated. He receives a call saying that his brother, Joe, has been taken seriously ill. There are a number of flashbacks in this film, one relating to Joe being diagnosed with a life shortening heart disease. By the time that Lee has driven to the hospital, near Manchester-by-the-Sea, Joe has died. The film actually starts with Joe and Lee on a boat with Joe's son Patrick, and on Joe's death his will requests that Lee becomes Patrick's guardian and trustee. This doesn't seem an unreasonable request but for Lee it is a bodyblow. It is a while before we learn why Lee feels that he cannot take on this responsibility, which takes us in another flashback to an incident that changed him as a person, and caused him to move away from the area.
The film then explores the relationship between Lee and Patrick, and the anguish that Lee suffers as he tries to manage affairs after his brother's death and come to terms with his responsibilities to Patrick. Things are not made any easier by Patrick's strong will and desire to stay where he is, while Lee wants them to move back to Boston. Further complications arise in respect of Lee's former wife, who he meets at the funeral reception, and Joe's former wife, they having become estranged after Joe's diagnosis. Patrick's sex life adds further complications as he is playing the field with two girlfriends, the mother of one showing an interest in Lee, an interest that isn't in any way reciprocated.
Lee's struggle with all these issues while being in a place where he clearly doesn't want to be are brilliantly portrayed by Affleck in what must certainly be an Oscar winning performance. Michelle Williams as Lee's former wife also deserves a mention, particularly in the scene where she meets up with Lee on the street and lets go of a flood of pent up emotions. I usually check out the Guardian reviews of the films I see, and in this case its Lanre Bakare says, … the impact of this impressive drama is suffocated by the silence and suffering of its central character." With the greatest respect to Mr Bakare, that is what the film is all about. Meanwhile Mark Kermode for the Observer says, "A tightly wound star turn from Casey Affleck helps writer-director Kenneth Lonergan deliver on his early promise in this heartbreaking tale of love and regret." I'm with Mark on this one, and for my money it's a film that shouldn't be missed.